Hailing from Kendal, the gateway to the Lake District and now based in London Woman’s Hour, are setting out to make both sparse dense indie-pop songs. This is perfectly illustrated on their Dirty Bingo debut: double A-side single: Jenni / Human, which encompasses influences from various prevalent trends in indie guitar music over the past few years.
Human has a slow-building extended opening half, blending warm synths, guitar harmonics and with a resounding dubstep snare delay. This then unpredictably transforms into a shoegazey, progressively grooving, disco ballad, built around higher-register bass lines and profound vocal wails. The stripped-back music allows for a pleasing minimalism and the use of space to great affect topped with singer Fiona Burgess’s pure voice.
Jenni is a denser track that sounds a bit like The XX, melded with calypso-jangle guitar pop in the vein of Vampire Weekend. It really is a charming piece but the discernible ‘riff’ marking the real start of the song doesn’t register until one-minute and four seconds of twinkling, building introduction have passed.Perhaps these, albeit tuneful and interesting, extended introductory passages should be edited from the single release. Also I would have liked to hear this track with more vocal gusto as the voice flirts with the weaker side of airy.
That said across the singles’ two tracks Woman’s Hour have shown real promise, experimentally producing a couple of hazy and intriguing songs on an overall solid debut.
Nick
